so i kinda not sure whats good and whats not. i am looking for one that i can basically throw in the back of my car if need be and go. but i also want it to be able to run some air tools also. so what i am asking if anyone can give me some advice to what to buy, thanks

 

It depends on what sort of air tools you want to run. If you want to run some high cfm tools you'll need a pretty expensive portable compressor.

 

I have one of these: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=95386 works great for airing tires, powering impact guns and air ratchets. Sucky for air drills and stuff with high cfm needs though.

 

Get a pancake compressor

 

someone want to explain the pros and cons of each type. i had one very similar to 03-accent-03's

 

I've got a 27 gallon compressor and still run into issues if I'm running tools with high CFM too constantly. Especially with a small tank you need a large compressor to keep the tank at full pressure pretty much all the time. The smaller the tank, the more compressor you need to do intermittent work. If you're working constantly at a given CFM, your compressor needs to keep up with that regardless of tank size. With mine, I can get away with a smaller compressor since I have such a large tank. If the tank was half the size or smaller I would need a way better compressor.